Chapter 9. THE DINNER PARTY
They sat down to an island dinner, remarkable for its variety andexcellence; turtle soup and steak, fish, fowls, a sucking pig, acocoanut salad, and sprouting cocoanut roasted for dessert. Not a tinhad been opened; and save for the oil and vinegar in the salad, and somegreen spears of onion which Attwater cultivated and plucked with his ownhand, not even the condiments were European. Sherry, hock, and claretsucceeded each other, and the Farallone champagne brought up the rearwith the dessert.
It was plain that, like so many of the extremely religious in thedays before teetotalism, Attwater had a dash of the epicure. For suchcharacters it is softening to eat well; doubly so to have designed andhad prepared an excellent meal for others; and the manners of their hostwere agreeably mollified in consequence.
A cat of huge growth sat on his shoulders purring, and occasionally,with a deft paw, capturing a morsel in the air. To a cat he might belikened himself, as he lolled at the head of his table, dealingout attentions and innuendoes, and using the velvet and the clawindifferently. And both Huish and the captain fell progressively underthe charm of his hospitable freedom.
Over the third guest, the incidents of the dinner may be said to havepassed for long unheeded. Herrick accepted all that was offered him, ateand drank without tasting, and heard without comprehension. His mindwas singly occupied in contemplating the horror of the circumstances inwhich he sat. What Attwater knew, what the captain designed, from whichside treachery was to be first expected, these were the ground of histhoughts. There were times when he longed to throw down the table andflee into the night. And even that was debarred him; to do anything,to say anything, to move at all, were only to precipitate the barbaroustragedy; and he sat spellbound, eating with white lips. Two of hiscompanions observed him narrowly, Attwater with raking, sidelong glancesthat did not interrupt his talk, the captain with a heavy and anxiousconsideration.
'Well, I must say this sherry is a really prime article,' said Huish.''Ow much does it stand you in, if it's a fair question?'
'A hundred and twelve shillings in London, and the freight toValparaiso, and on again,' said Attwater. 'It strikes one as really nota bad fluid.'
'A 'undred and twelve!' murmured the clerk, relishing the wine and thefigures in a common ecstasy: 'O my!'
'So glad you like it,' said Attwater. 'Help yourself, Mr Whish, and keepthe bottle by you.'
'My friend's name is Huish and not Whish, sit,' said the captain with aflush.
'I beg your pardon, I am sure. Huish and not Whish, certainly,' saidAttwater. 'I was about to say that I have still eight dozen,' he added,fixing the captain with his eye.
'Eight dozen what?' said Davis.
'Sherry,' was the reply. 'Eight dozen excellent sherry. Why, it seemsalmost worth it in itself; to a man fond of wine.'
The ambiguous words struck home to guilty consciences, and Huish and thecaptain sat up in their places and regarded him with a scare.
'Worth what?' said Davis.
'A hundred and twelve shillings,' replied Attwater.
The captain breathed hard for a moment. He reached out far and wide tofind any coherency in these remarks; then, with a great effort, changedthe subject.
'I allow we are about the first white men upon this island, sir,' saidhe.
Attwater followed him at once, and with entire gravity, to the newground. 'Myself and Dr Symonds excepted, I should say the only ones,' hereturned. 'And yet who can tell? In the course of the ages someone mayhave lived here, and we sometimes think that someone must. The cocoapalms grow all round the island, which is scarce like nature's planting.We found besides, when we landed, an unmistakable cairn upon the beach;use unknown; but probably erected in the hope of gratifying some mumbojumbo whose very name is forgotten, by some thick-witted gentry whosevery bones are lost. Then the island (witness the Directory) has beentwice reported; and since my tenancy, we have had two wrecks, bothderelict. The rest is conjecture.'
'Dr Symonds is your partner, I guess?' said Davis.
'A dear fellow, Symonds! How he would regret it, if he knew you had beenhere!' said Attwater.
''E's on the Trinity 'All, ain't he?' asked Huish.
'And if you could tell me where the Trinity 'All was, you would confer afavour, Mr Whish!' was the reply.
'I suppose she has a native crew?' said Davis.
'Since the secret has been kept ten years, one would suppose she had,'replied Attwater.
'Well, now, see 'ere!' said Huish. 'You have everything about you inno end style, and no mistake, but I tell you it wouldn't do for me. Toomuch of "the old rustic bridge by the mill"; too retired, by 'alf. Giveme the sound of Bow Bells!'
'You must not think it was always so,' replied Attwater, 'This was oncea busy shore, although now, hark! you can hear the solitude. I find itstimulating. And talking of the sound of bells, kindly follow a littleexperiment of mine in silence.' There was a silver bell at his righthand to call the servants; he made them a sign to stand still, struckthe bell with force, and leaned eagerly forward. The note rose clear andstrong; it rang out clear and far into the night and over the desertedisland; it died into the distance until there only lingered in theporches of the ear a vibration that was sound no longer. 'Empty houses,empty sea, solitary beaches!' said Attwater. 'And yet God hears thebell! And yet we sit in this verandah on a lighted stage with all heavenfor spectators! And you call that solitude?'
There followed a bar of silence, during which the captain satmesmerised.
Then Attwater laughed softly. 'These are the diversions of a lonely,man,' he resumed, 'and possibly not in good taste. One tells oneselfthese little fairy tales for company. If there SHOULD happen to beanything in folk-lore, Mr Hay? But here comes the claret. One does notoffer you Lafitte, captain, because I believe it is all sold to therailroad dining cars in your great country; but this Brine-Mouton is ofa good year, and Mr Whish will give me news of it.'
'That's a queer idea of yours!' cried the captain, bursting with a sighfrom the spell that had bound him. 'So you mean to tell me now, thatyou sit here evenings and ring up... well, ring on the angels... byyourself?'
'As a matter of historic fact, and since you put it directly, one doesnot,' said Attwater. 'Why ring a bell, when there flows out from oneselfand everything about one a far more momentous silence? the least beat ofmy heart and the least thought in my mind echoing into eternity for everand for ever and for ever.'
'O look 'ere,' said Huish, 'turn down the lights at once, and the Bandof 'Ope will oblige! This ain't a spiritual seance.'
'No folk-lore about Mr Whish--I beg your pardon, captain: Huish notWhish, of course,' said Attwater.
As the boy was filling Huish's glass, the bottle escaped from his handand was shattered, and the wine spilt on the verandah floor. Instantgrimness as of death appeared on the face of Attwater; he smote thebell imperiously, and the two brown natives fell into the attitudeof attention and stood mute and trembling. There was just a moment ofsilence and hard looks; then followed a few savage words in the native;and, upon a gesture of dismissal, the service proceeded as before.
None of the party had as yet observed upon the excellent bearing of thetwo men. They were dark, undersized, and well set up; stepped softly,waited deftly, brought on the wines and dishes at a look, and their eyesattended studiously on their master.
'Where do you get your labour from anyway?' asked Davis.
'Ah, where not?' answered Attwater.
'Not much of a soft job, I suppose?' said the captain.
'If you will tell me where getting labour is!' said Attwater with ashrug. 'And of course, in our case, as we could name no destination,we had to go far and wide and do the best we could. We have gone as farwest as the Kingsmills and as far south as Rapa-iti. Pity Symonds isn'there! He is full of yarns. That was his part, to collect them. Thenbegan mine, which was the educational.'
'You mean to run them?' said Davis.
'Ay! to run them,' said Attwater.
> 'Wait a bit,' said Davis, 'I'm out of my depth. How was this? Do youmean to say you did it single-handed?'
'One did it single-handed,' said Attwater, 'because there was nobody tohelp one.'
'By God, but you must be a holy terror!' cried the captain, in a glow ofadmiration.
'One does one's best,' said Attwater.
'Well, now!' said Davis, 'I have seen a lot of driving in my time andbeen counted a good driver myself; I fought my way, third mate, roundthe Cape Horn with a push of packet rats that would have turned thedevil out of hell and shut the door on him; and I tell you, this racketof Mr Attwater's takes the cake. In a ship, why, there ain't nothing toit! You've got the law with you, that's what does it. But put me down onthis blame' beach alone, with nothing but a whip and a mouthful of badwords, and ask me to... no, SIR! it's not good enough! I haven't got thesand for that!' cried Davis. 'It's the law behind,' he added; 'it's thelaw does it, every time!'
'The beak ain't as black as he's sometimes pynted,' observed Huish,humorously.
'Well, one got the law after a fashion,' said Attwater. 'One had to be anumber of things. It was sometimes rather a bore.'
'I should smile!' said Davis. 'Rather lively, I should think!'
'I dare say we mean the same thing,' said Attwater. 'However, one wayor another, one got it knocked into their heads that they MUST work, andthey DID... until the Lord took them!'
''Ope you made 'em jump,' said Huish.
'When it was necessary, Mr Whish, I made them jump,' said Attwater.
'You bet you did,' cried the captain. He was a good deal flushed, butnot so much with wine as admiration; and his eyes drank in the hugeproportions of the other with delight. 'You bet you did, and you betthat I can see you doing it! By God, you're a man, and you can say Isaid so.'
'Too good of you, I'm sure,' said Attwater.
'Did you--did you ever have crime here?' asked Herrick, breaking hissilence with a pungent voice.
'Yes,' said Attwater, 'we did.'
'And how did you handle that, sir?' cried the eager captain.
'Well, you see, it was a queer case,' replied Attwater, 'it was a casethat would have puzzled Solomon. Shall I tell it you? yes?'
The captain rapturously accepted.
'Well,' drawled Attwater, 'here is what it was. I dare say you know twotypes of natives, which may be called the obsequious and the sullen?Well, one had them, the types themselves, detected in the fact; and onehad them together. Obsequiousness ran out of the first like wine outof a bottle, sullenness congested in the second. Obsequiousness was allsmiles; he ran to catch your eye, he loved to gabble; and he had abouta dozen words of beach English, and an eighth-of-an-inch veneer ofChristianity. Sullens was industrious; a big down-looking bee. Whenhe was spoken to, he answered with a black look and a shrug of oneshoulder, but the thing would be done. I don't give him to you for amodel of manners; there was nothing showy about Sullens; but he wasstrong and steady, and ungraciously obedient. Now Sullens got intotrouble; no matter how; the regulations of the place were broken, andhe was punished accordingly--without effect. So, the next day, and thenext, and the day after, till I began to be weary of the business, andSullens (I am afraid) particularly so. There came a day when he was infault again, for the--oh, perhaps the thirtieth time; and he rolled adull eye upon me, with a spark in it, and appeared to speak. Nowthe regulations of the place are formal upon one point: we allow noexplanations; none are received, none allowed to be offered. So onestopped him instantly; but made a note of the circumstance. The nextday, he was gone from the settlement. There could be nothing moreannoying; if the labour took to running away, the fishery was wrecked.There are sixty miles of this island, you see, all in length like theQueen's Highway; the idea of pursuit in such a place was a piece ofsingle-minded childishness, which one did not entertain. Two days later,I made a discovery; it came in upon me with a flash that Sullens hadbeen unjustly punished from beginning to end, and the real culpritthroughout had been Obsequiousness. The native who talks, like the womanwho hesitates, is lost. You set him talking and lying; and he talks, andlies, and watches your face to see if he has pleased you; till atlast, out comes the truth! It came out of Obsequiousness in the regularcourse. I said nothing to him; I dismissed him; and late as it was, forit was already night, set off to look for Sullens. I had not far to go:about two hundred yards up the island, the moon showed him to me. He washanging in a cocoa palm--I'm not botanist enough to tell you how--butit's the way, in nine cases out of ten, these natives commit suicide.His tongue was out, poor devil, and the birds had got at him; I spareyou details, he was an ugly sight! I gave the business six good hours ofthinking in this verandah. My justice had been made a fool of; I don'tsuppose that I was ever angrier. Next day, I had the conch sounded andall hands out before sunrise. One took one's gun, and led the way, withObsequiousness. He was very talkative; the beggar supposed that all wasright now he had confessed; in the old schoolboy phrase, he wasplainly 'sucking up' to me; full of protestations of goodwill andgood behaviour; to which one answered one really can't remember what.Presently the tree came in sight, and the hanged man. They all burst outlamenting for their comrade in the island way, and Obsequiousness wasthe loudest of the mourners. He was quite genuine; a noxious creature,without any consciousness of guilt. Well, presently--to make a longstory short--one told him to go up the tree. He stared a bit, looked atone with a trouble in his eye, and had rather a sickly smile; but went.He was obedient to the last; he had all the pretty virtues, but thetruth was not in him. So soon as he was up, he looked down, and therewas the rifle covering him; and at that he gave a whimper like a dog.You could bear a pin drop; no more keening now. There they all crouchedupon the ground, with bulging eyes; there was he in the tree top, thecolour of the lead; and between was the dead man, dancing a bit in theair. He was obedient to the last, recited his crime, recommended hissoul to God. And then...'
Attwater paused, and Herrick, who had been listening attentively, made aconvulsive movement which upset his glass.
'And then?' said the breathless captain.
'Shot,' said Attwater. 'They came to ground together.'
Herrick sprang to his feet with a shriek and an insensate gesture.
'It was a murder,' he screamed. 'A cold-hearted, bloody-mindedmurder! You monstrous being! Murderer and hypocrite--murderer andhypocrite--murderer and hypocrite--' he repeated, and his tonguestumbled among the words.
The captain was by him in a moment. 'Herrick!' he cried, 'behaveyourself! Here, don't be a blame' fool!'
Herrick struggled in his embrace like a frantic child, and suddenlybowing his face in his hands, choked into a sob, the first of many,which now convulsed his body silently, and now jerked from himindescribable and meaningless sounds.
'Your friend appears over-excited,' remarked Attwater, sitting unmovedbut all alert at table.
'It must be the wine,' replied the captain. 'He ain't no drinkingman, you see. I--I think I'll take him away. A walk'll sober him up, Iguess.'
He led him without resistance out of the verandah and into the night, inwhich they soon melted; but still for some time, as they drew away,his comfortable voice was to be heard soothing and remonstrating, andHerrick answering, at intervals, with the mechanical noises of hysteria.
''E's like a bloomin' poultry yard!' observed Huish, helping himself towine (of which he spilled a good deal) with gentlemanly ease. 'A manshould learn to beyave at table,' he added.
'Rather bad form, is it not?' said Attwater. 'Well, well, we are lefttete-a-tete. A glass of wine with you, Mr Whish!'
The Ebb-Tide: A Trio And Quartette Page 9